onths, and requesting that he would resume the
command of the army. The authorities of Madras strongly urged Coote to
return, representing the extreme importance of the struggle in which
they were engaged. He consented, and reached camp on the night of the
20th. He at once ordered the captured redoubts to be fortified, to
prevent the enemy again taking the offensive; and erected a strong
work, called the North Redoubt, near the seashore and facing the
Madras redoubt.

A few days later, on a party of Sepoys approaching the Ariangopang
redoubt, the occupants of that place were seized with a panic,
abandoned the place, and went into the town. The English had now
possession of the whole of the outward defences of Pondicherry, with
the exception of the two redoubts by the seashore.

A day or two later Colonel Coote, advancing along the sea beach as if
with a view of merely making a reconnaissance, pushed on suddenly,
entered the village called the Blancherie, as it was principally
inhabited by washerwomen, and attacked the Madras redoubt. This was
carried, but the same night the garrison sallied out again, and fell
upon the party of Sepoys posted there. Ensign MacMahon was killed, but
the Sepoys, although driven out from the redoubt, bravely returned and
again attacked the French; who, thinking that the Sepoys must have
received large reinforcements, fell back into the village; from which,
a day or two later, they retired into the town.

The whole of the ground outside the fort, between the river
Ariangopang and the sea, was now in the hands of the English. The
French still maintained their communications with the south by the
sandy line of coast. By this time the attacks, which the English from
Trichinopoli and Madura had made upon the Mysoreans, had compelled the
latter to make peace, and recall their army, which was still hovering
in the neighbourhood of Pondicherry.

Charlie, who had been suffering from a slight attack of fever, had for
some time been staying on board ship, for change. In the road of
Pondicherry three of the French Indiamen, the Hermione, Baleine, and
the Compagnie des Indes, were at anchor, near the edge of the surf,
under the cover of a hundred guns mounted on the sea face of the fort.
These ships were awaiting the stormy weather, at the breaking of the
monsoon, when it would be difficult for the English fleet to maintain
their position off the town. They then intended to sail away to the
south, f